


Lost Opportunity

by ThirteenOakdown



Series: Doctor Who [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Who Feels, F/F, Female Doctor (Doctor Who), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm telling you, Other, THIS IS THE HAPPY ENDING OPPY NEVER GOT, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tooth Rotting Fluff, come on i stayed up till one editing this, doctor who fluff, faint hints of thasmin, i'm publishing this with a carton of ice cream in my lap and this is THE LIFE, man the TARDIS is so cool i want one, obvious hints of tardis-fam, the TARDIS has a garden you can't change my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 21:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenOakdown/pseuds/ThirteenOakdown
Summary: The Opportunity Rover. Team Tardis. Torchwood. NASA.What could possibly go wrong?





	Lost Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

> …literally
> 
> You’ll see why later ;)
> 
> —
> 
> RIP Oppy, 2003-2018, Gone but not forgotten. 
> 
> —
> 
> I’m writing this while listening to Fantasy by Superfruit and Amber Liu (Go listen to it it’s good) and my family’s watching Avengers: Endgame outside (for the second time) so this better be worth it
> 
> update about my Endgame watching — i got distracted so i went out and the next thing that happens is i see the love of my life jump off a cliff and i’m just like :/ but crying so :’/
> 
> i’m really sorry this is just several of my own headcanons cobbled together

The systems were going haywire at NASA. Why, you ask? Because the Opportunity Rover had lit up again, after an entire month of sadness, mourning and desperate prayers for the dust to be blown off. 

And it was displaying a shining column and orange crystal-like columns, which, unless there were aliens, by all means, should not be possible.

Human imprinting really is a powerful thing. 

So powerful, that it moved a Gallifreyan to help three - or rather, two very sad humans. 

—

“Hey, Doc? What’re you doing?” Thirteen was humming a small song she heard from Ryan’s recommendations (something about boys and milkshakes) as she shifted her round steampunk goggles onto her slightly scrunched forehead while wiping the bridge of her nose, leaving behind a smear of blackish-brown machine oil. “I’m doing routine TARDIS maintenance; after it’s only fair, because I’ve regenerated in her twice now, really got to stop doing that. ” Ryan peered down at her through the glass floor where a screen had been retracted to reveal mechanisms he could never even think to understand, let alone fix. “Er, Doc, you got something on your face.” Thirteen rubbed at her nose, which only resulted in smudging it more, and she huffed in increasing annoyance, the oil making the rest of her face look pale in comparison. Yaz popped up next to Ryan, opening her mouth to remark on the smudge of oil when Ryan nudged her and shook his head, mouthing “I’ve already said something”, and Yaz just nodded. “Doctor?” Thirteen paused in her useless pursuit, looking up at Yaz and pulling her goggles off, sighing in the process. “Yep?” Yaz fumbled for her phone, narrowly avoided it falling to the floor of the TARDIS, and held it up. Thirteen squinted at it, her brow furrowing and nose scrunching up, then laughed. “Oh, Oppy! I know them! I helped design’em, in fact. I was sent to supervise their trip to Mars, but then got bored and went off to stop a revolution on Raxacoricofallapatorius, and by the time I returned, Oppy had landed, and was trundling around.” She smiled fondly, putting down her wrench, and untied her apron. “Be back in a sec,” she said, walking out the side door, draping her leather apron over her arm and brushing her hair aside.

—

She returned, not even a minute later, in her usual outfit, the smudge on her face now in the process of disappearing with the handkerchief that was being rubbed angrily over her nose as she hopped up the stairs, and plopped down in between Yaz and Ryan, who were sitting on the steps surrounding the console, slinging her arms over their shoulders carelessly. “Hello, fam! What did you wanna talk about again?” Ryan raised one finger, saying “Raxacori-what?” Yaz filled the rest in, “Raxacoricofallapatorius. Real tongue twister, that.” Ryan rolled his eyes and smiled, then jumped to the next thing. “But, Doc, you helped design Oppy?” The Doctor smiled, shrugging, hands still slung over Yaz and Ryan’s shoulders casually. “Kate Lethbridge-Stewart called, and I answered.” Yaz swatted Ryan, “Get back on topic, Ryan!”, and Ryan nodded. “Yes, boss.” He raised his phone, on it a tweet from NASA, a bittersweet “thank you” for all that the Opportunity Rover had achieved, and the Doctor’s mouth dropped open. “Are you telling me because of the dust storm, the rover everyone loves has basically died?” She leapt up, striding over to the console to pull some levers, and with a familiar wheezing, groaning sound, the TARDIS had set off.

“Where we going, Doc?” Graham stumbled out, eyes bleary from spending so long in the library. Thirteen smiled.

“To Mars!”

—

After the resounding clang, Thirteen and Yaz reappeared, both carrying garish orange spacesuits and helmets while only the Doctor wore a pair of delicate rose-gold-and-enamel framed sunglasses. Graham raised an arm to block the violently reflective suits, and Thirteen rolled her eyes. “Don’t ruin the vibe, Graham!” 

After the necessary safety briefing, the doors to the TARDIS opened, and the four of them stepped onto the dusty desert of Mars. The Doctor’s nose scrunched up as she regarded her surroundings, looking slightly uncomfortable. Graham and Ryan were too busy wandering off, but Yaz stayed behind. “Doctor? You alright?” Thirteen smiled, kicking a pebble, which bounced off with a small skittering sound. “Yep! Perfecly fine. Never been better.” Yaz tilted her head and smiled, her hand moving to hold the Doctor’s, whose head shot up in surprise. “I know you’re lying, Doc. What happened?” The Doctor sighed, the smile slipping off her face, and her eyes floated down to look at the russet red landscape. “I’ll tell you later in the TARDIS. Now go and enjoy Mars, Yasmin Khan.” And with that, her sunglasses seemed to vibrate, but only slightly, and she turned around. Yaz took this as a clean dismissal, taking her hand off the Doctor’s, and it was hard not to feel rebuked as she rejoined Ryan and Graham, who were chatting over the comms about whether martian dust would cause allergies. 

—

About half an hour had passed, and all three of them were deep in discussion about air fresheners when Thirteen’s voice came bouncing over the comms with a violent whiplash of feedback, causing all three of them to flinch as her tumbling apologies gradually became more obvious as the feedback retreated, and then she started. “Hello fam, I’ve found Oppy, and she’s roughly, er, a mile in that direction. So, let’s go!” Graham hurried after her, bouncing slightly due to the smaller amount of gravity on Mars, and tapped his comm. “Doc, why don’t we just take the TARDIS over to this so-called Martian rover?” The Doctor shrugged, and replied “Because of timey wimey things.” Graham looked at her ans shrugged, or rather, her back, because she had managed to put an impressive distance between the three of them and her, so they hurried to close the gap before they all got lost.

—

The Opportunity Rover’s solar panels were caked in a surprisingly thin layer of dust, and the camera had a small mound of dust on top, and Thirteen was about to brush it off when Yaz grabbed her hand, saying “Maybe that wouldn’t be too good an idea, Doctor, we don’t want the Opportunity Rover to light up now and show the four of us staring at it.” Thirteen shrugged and pointed her sonic at it. “Good thinking, Yaz. ” Thirteen posed herself behind the rover, the four of them pushing it after dusting the solar panels off, and a small bar on the side of the rover started blinking, green blocks slowly reappearing as the five of the walked back to the TARDIS. 

—

Back in the TARDIS, Thirteen grabbed the practically invisible line that led to a zipper, and the suit fell off like a shell, while the three of them were staring at the surprisingly large rover that had, by some miracle, fitted through the TARDIS doors; not that she’d been happy about that. The Opportunity rover had left reddish dust everywhere, which was sifting through the holes in the floor, clogging up some machinery, causing the TARDIS to whine a long-suffering sigh. The Doctor patted the side of the light column, whispering an apology, and she turned back to her fam, who were busy peeling the garish orange suits off, getting even more dust in the TARDIS, and Thirteen felt the TARDIS sigh in her mind. “Guys, guys, guys, no, how do you expect her to like you when you’re leaving Martian dust everywhere?” A faint whooshing sound sounded, and something hissing was blown out of the lower deck and back onto Mars. 

Thanks, Sexy. Sorry again.

Get dust in me again and that won’t be the only thing flying out. 

Come on, I’ve already fallen out once! Is the machinery alright?

I don’t think so, Thief, one of the dematerialisation circuits is clogged and one of the four recursive time filaments popped. 

Okay, I’ll repair them.

No, it’s alright. I’ll do it. Go to the cloisters and try to unwind.

You sure?

Yes. Go.

Don’t let anyone know where I’m gonna go, ‘kay?

Sure.

The Doctor withdrew her mind from the telepathic link with the TARDIS, turning to look at her companions, who were carefully and gingerly folding the suits, taking special care not to get any dust on the floor.

The TARDIS took off, spinning out into space gladly.

All the while, the blinking green bar on the side of the rover was replenishing itself, bit by bit.

—

The Doctor had taken their suits and ambled off, throwing out a casual word of “There’s a movie cinema somewhere in the TARDIS, she’ll guide you”, before disappearing among the elegantly rugged blue-lit corridors, which twisted and turned and contorted like a maze. Another corridor on the other side of the console room lit up, causing the three to turn around in surprise then file through, leading into a gorgeously vaulted cinema with plush velvet seats and popcorn machines lined along the slightly sparkling crystalline walls. Ryan immediately made a beeline for the popcorn whilst Yaz ran for the console, pulling up Call the Midwife while Graham settled into a seat, gratefully accepting the caramel popcorn that Ryan handed to him. Yaz settled in next to Graham, slumped against his shoulder and started eating vanilla popcorn, while Ryan sat on his left, taking a swig out of his glass of apple juice, and pressed the “play” button on the remote.

—

It had been roughly over an hour, and the Doctor was still nowhere to be seen. ‘Odd’, Yaz thought to herself. The Doctor usually loved to join them during movie nights, and as Ryan and Graham were entrapped in the pleasant spell of the familiar show flickering over the screen, Yaz was getting more and more worried, and when she couldn’t stand the lack of a familiar embrace anymore, she practically scrambled out of her seat and made for the door, shutting it behind her. With a soft whisper of velvet, Ryan got out of his seat to follow Yaz, but was stopped by Graham’s hand on his arm.

“Let her go, Ryan.”

“Why, grandad?”

“They need it.”

“Who needs what?”

“Both of them need each other.”

—

Yaz found her way back to the console room, and laid her hand on the console, closing her eyes. 

“Look, I know we haven’t talked much, but I really need your help.”

What with, companion?

“You- what- how?”

Telepathic circuits. What do you need my help with?

“The Doctor. Can you tell me where she is?”

You do know that she specifically asked me not to let anyone know where she was, right?

Yaz was about to go back to the theatre with her head hung when a corridor to her right lit up.

“Shouldn’t I leave her alone?”

She needs you. Go.

—

After following a trail of blue lights along the floor and passing by some extremely strange rooms, including an elegantly domed library, a glass-floored swimming pool (Yaz sincerely hoped the glass was only one-way), and a room of odd bottles of golden mist, not dissimilar with the wisp the Doctor had breathed out (Ryan had told her in amazement). Just as Yaz seemed to think the corridors would never end the floor made an abrupt transition from crystal to uneven stone, signalling Yaz had reached the cloisters. It actually split into two paths that reconverged about 60 feet from Yaz. A virescent green square of grass was situated in the middle of the two paths, with many plants that Yaz had never even seen before. And in the middle of it all, a bench under a verdant apple tree, on which was the Doctor, her back to Yaz. She was throwing an apple in the air and catching it listlessly, and Yaz must have made some kind of noise, probably stepped on a leaf or something, because the Doctor whirled around, apple still in hand. “Oh. It’s you. Come on in, will you?”She added at the end, slightly testily, “Sexy, you’re fired.” Yaz could hear something, and somehow the TARDIS was able to talk to the both of them. 

And what would you do without me, Thief?

“Hmph. Sit down, Yaz! It’s wonderful!” 

Yaz gratefully obliged, walking into the square and sitting down on a wooden bench. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, and Yaz was grateful for the fresh air and sunlight, though it might have been synthetic. The Doctor was still flipping her apple around, looking the other way with a sort of melancholy air about her. Yaz looked around, not sure how to fill the silence when her eyes landed on an odd plant, a purple and blue and orange coral-like frame surrounding the vermilion centre that seemed to pulse regularly, like a heart. Without thinking, Yaz blurted “What is that plant?” The Doctor had also been slightly startled by this exclamation, tensing up instinctively, but she relaxed slightly. “It’s a Madraporia Cervae, from the planet Spiridon. I was there ages ago, so long ago I don’t even remember, but I ended up getting this as a souvenir from a friend, and of course I planted it here.” 

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, looking at the miscellaneous trees and plants that dotted the lawn, nothing to say to each other, and Yaz hoping that her presence would bring the Doctor away from the self-destructive pit that held memories that were better off left unspoken. Finally, after several minutes spent in silence, the Doctor relaxed, exhaling audibly, and slumped into Yaz’s lap, causing Yaz’s heart to jump. The Doctor looked up at her, smiling in a slightly embarassed way, and Yaz gently placed a kiss on her forehead, smiling softly. 

“What’s wrong?” “Nothing, nothing. Nothing you need to worry about, anyway. Everything’s peary…wait no, I hate pears,” she said vehemently. “Everything’s appley? Fruity?” Yaz was about to say something when the Doctor shot up, pointing a finger in the air triumphantly, and exclaimed “Peachy! That’s the word! Everything’s peachy, Yaz!” Yaz looked at her affectionately, then gently said, a bit sadly, “I know something’s wrong. What is it, love?” The Doctor looked away, taking a bite of the apple, and smiled, a flimsy paper smile. “Talking about it’ll make you feel better. Promise.” The Doctor put her head on Yaz’s shoulder, slightly surprising Yaz, and she was about to ask the Doctor what was wrong when the Doctor started…crying? Yaz really wasn’t sure about it, but she could have sworn the Doctor’s symptoms were those of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and her heart broke a little more as she wondered what else the Doctor was hiding. She let the Doctor cry on her shoulder for a while, occasionally making shushing sounds and rocking back and forth, and gradually, the Doctor’s sobs slowly turned into raspy breaths and the occasional hiccup. Yaz’s jacket was definitely sopping wet by now, but she’d decided that the Time Lord, no, Time Lady, in front of her was much more important. Finally, the Doctor opened her mouth.

“How did you know?”

“I’m a police officer, I know how to read people.” 

“It’s quite a walk, eh?”

“The view’s worth the wait,” she said, taking special care to look at the plants instead.

“The view’s gorgeous,” the Doctor replied, not even bothering to take her eyes off Yaz’s face.

Yaz hugged her tightly, smiling slightly all the while, and decided now would be as good a time as any to breach the topic of what really happened on Mars when the Doctor decided to start talking anyway. 

“It was ages ago, when I was still on my tenth reincarnation.” She allowed herself a small smile at the recollection of him, all gangly limbs and good hair and 3-D glasses. “I went to Mars and joined some kind of research team by accident, headed by Captain Adelaide Brooke, and as a side project, they were collecting water from the core of Mars for irrigation. Everything was going perfectly until several members of their team ended up catching a kind of virus that would actively infect people. I knew what happened after that, or, what ended up happening, anyway, and I couldn’t tell any of them.” She added, like some kind of afterthought, “That’s both the curse and the blessing of the Time Lords. Anyway, back to the story, even touching the water would infect you. Captain Brooke ended up trapping me in a capsule and she didn’t let me out and threatened to lower the pressure as well, and she demanded to know what would happen in the end, and I had to tell her.” 

Yaz was in awe at the sheer audacity of the Captain. “What happened next?” 

“Reluctantly, I told her who the Earth would remember her as.” 

“And how would they remember her?” 

“She blew up the base, killing nine of her crew, including herself. In the span of a generation, her granddaughter becomes Captain of a mission to explore space, and they meet all the different species out there, and they make friends and allies and several enemies too. Not too many, though, everyone loves humans because they think humans are cute. ”

Yaz laughed at that, quickly sobering up when she came to the question, of what happened after that. 

“I decided, sod the rules of Time, and went back to save the Captain. I told myself, she’d wanted that.” 

Yaz squinted slightly. “What about it being a fixed point in time?” 

The Doctor smiled ruefully. “I thought I was the last of the Time Lords, and I could do whatever I pleased. I dropped her back on Earth, in front of her apartment. I thought she’d be happy, but she said something else.” 

“What’d she say?”

“She asked, ‘What made you come back for me?’ I was floundering for an answer when something popped into my brain, crystal clear.”

“What was it?”

The Doctor shuddered slightly, wanting to continue to avoid the topic, and she tried to avoid Yaz’s eyes by leaning down and plucking a wide and flat blade of grass from beneath her feet, tearing it into small shreds.. “‘I’m not just the survivor. I’m the… winner.’ Mind you, this was coming from the power-addled mind of the Time Lord Victorious, and I’d always regretted not being able to save Gallifrey, so that’s what I do. I run around, saving other people, because I couldn’t save my own people.” She laughed, a bitter and harsh sound, and another tatter of grass dropped to the grass. 

“I was the survivor only because I ran away. The Coward,” she said, spitting it out, “The War Doctor, the one who ran and kept running because he couldn’t face his past.” Another venomously bitten syllable, another piece of grass, another sliver broken off Yaz’s heart. 

“If I’d stayed, I could have saved them. My parents, my friends, my brother, my children, my grandchildren. Instead, I watched them burn as I ran, far, far away from Gallifrey. I repeated to myself, it’s what they wanted, for me to kill all the Daleks as revenge. But when I’d realised several Daleks had slipped my grasp, I was coldly murderous. And when I’d also found out that Gallifrey had survived, I suppose it was equal. They’d live, and so would my planet.” Another piece of grass joined the rapidly amassing mound of green shreds on the ground. 

“How’d Captain Brooke respond?”

“She went into her house, and I turned, nowhere else to go, when I heard a gunshot. In Adelaide’s house. She killed herself,” said the Doctor bluntly. “Everything proceeded as normal after that, with her granddaughter going out into the stars, and her granddaughter’s children, and their children. I can’t say that I regretted saving her on Mars, but I just wished that I had-” She was cut off as the TARDIS’s Cloister Bell tolled; a deep, clanging peal that set Yaz’s teeth on edge and reverberated through the halls and rooms. The Doctor grabbed Yaz’s hand and ran for the exit, running back into the familiarly blue-lit corridors. 

“Come on, Yaz, something’s wrong!”

“You really shouldn’t be enjoying yourself so much.”

“Oh come on! I eat danger for breakfast!”

“No, you like those little Portugese tart things, in your exact words. We’ll talk later, okay? Promise me?”

“Promise.” 

And with that, they kept running, smiles on their faces, but the conversation to be had never far from mind.

—

“Put UNIT on the phone.” “Ma’am, they were deactivated.” “Or at least pass me the phone, Private, Do as you’re told.” A soldier handed a phone to Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, who dialled a number and put it up to her ear, turning away from the massive screen showing a bit of movement and ornage light on what was supposed to be Mars, live feed from the Opportunity Rover. 

“This is Captain Jack Harkness.” 

“Hello, Jack, it’s Lethbridge-Stewart. You better not be in bed with Ianto again.”

Kate could practically feel Jack rolling his eyes on the other end. “Aren’t you at NASA?” “Yes, I’m at NASA. Guess who just popped up on the Opportunity Rover’s cam?” 

Jack went off the line for a second, and Kate could hear him shushing a very sleepy Ianto, and he returned to the line. “Something odd?” Kate nodded. “Yep. Meet me here at NASA HQ using your vortex manipulator as soon as possible, alright?” Jack groaned, “Didn’t you take mine to get you to work?” “We both know you have another one, Harkness. See you here.” Jack managed to slip in one last thing, saying sadly “How about sleep, Kate?” Kate sighed, forehead wrinkling, and muttered “Five minutes, Jack. Don’t get caught up with snogging Jones, or I’ll have your head.” Jack mumbled an acknowledgement and hung up, leaning down to grab his pants and kiss Ianto, then got out of bed, Ianto following close behind. 

—

“Hi Kate. What’s the reason you forced me to leave the confines of my very warm bed?” 

Kate whirled around in surprise then smirked, putting an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “Nice to see you too, Jack. Look,” she said, pointing to the screen and ignoring the very obvious pout that was spreading across a certain Captain’s face.

A knackered and bleary-eyed Captain Jack Harkness turned to the screen, dragging a hand over his face and slight stubble, noticing the slight commotion around the frames of Oppy’s camera. Huh. Oppy. Sounds surprisingly catchy. 

“D’ye reckon it’s the Doctor again, Katie?”

“Could be, Jack. Call me Katie and I’ll call you Jackson in front of all of UNIT.” 

Jack continued, a slight smirk on his face. “Would’ya like me to call him, Katie? I still have his number, y’know,” he slurred, voice slightly misty from sleep.

Kate glared at him, replying with a “Alright, Jackson, call him.” After a pleading glance from Jack, she relented. “Fine. I’ll get you coffee. Don’t get used to it.” 

—

The Doctor skidded to a stop in the console room as she saw Graham and Ryan standing, far far away from the Martian rover. Graham pointed at the rover, camera/eye swivelling slightly, and a small blinking red light in the corner.

“Doc, I think it’s working again,” whispered Graham. The Doctor’s mouth rearranged itself into a straight line, and she pointed her sonic at the rover, disabling the sound input and dimming the lights in the TARDIS.

Just then, the telephone rang. In three strides, the Doctor went for the phone and pulled it out of its socket. The person on the other end took a breath, speakers hidden in the TARDIS audibly proving this, and the Doctor sat on the edge of the console, and cut them off.

“This is Jane Smith, Doctor. Here to make an appointment?”

The person on the other end replied with “Hello, Doctor. Trouble with the screwdriver. It’s Jack. Also, are you a woman now?”

Her face broke out into a smile. “Yep,” she said, popping the P sound. “Regenerated. Jack! How are ya? Something wrong?”

She could hear the smile in his voice, as he said “Yeah, something slightly wrong. The rover’s showing some kind of…spaceship. It’s all orange. Would you know anything about that?”

The Doctor looked over at the large Rover, and turned back to the phone, the slight pause in her voice belying the truth. “…no, haven’t seen Oppy anywhere.”

“Odd, because she isn’t the only rover on a mission from NASA, and I didn’t say anything about Oppy. Where is the Opportunity rover, Doctor?”

The Doctor glared at the phone with a sort of playful anger, and snarked “Alright, Sherlock Holmes. You got me. D’you want me to put them back?” 

Jack scoffed. “No, you can put her on another planet. Yes, put Oppy back!”

The Doctor smirked. “Really? ‘Cause I wouldn’t mind a quick trip back to Earth, right in the Tower of London, eh? Good enough a view?”

He laughed, remarking “Good view, but not as good as the one on Mars. Put them back, please! ‘sides, what were you doing?”

The Doctor nodded unconsciously. “Charging Oppy up. It was Yaz and Ryan’s fault, not mine! Also, say hi, guys!” 

Ryan glared at her, mouthing ‘way to point the blame, Doc’ before letting out a tremulous “Hi, Jack?” Yaz did the same, and Jack laughed. “Nice to meet you, Yaz, Ryan. I’m Captain Jack Harkness.” 

The Doctor groaned. “Oh, don’t start!” 

“Something wrong?” Jack said innocently, then turned businesslike. “Promise you’ll put’em back, alright?” “Yeah, alright.” 

The TARDIS whirred again, saying something telepathically to the Doctor, and the Doctor nodded. “We’ll be there in a jiffy, Cap’n! Say hi to Kate for me, will ya?” With that, she put the phone back into the receiver, and pulled the lever, sending the TARDIS careening away.

—

“Here, Jackson. Coffee to ease your suffering.” 

Jack put down his phone and practically grabbed the coffee and inhaled it, pausing briefly only to say thank you. 

“How’d it go?”

Jack took another swig of his sugared coffee. “Well, he’s a she now, first off, and she promised she’d put Oppy back. Secondly, she said hi.” 

“Good, good. Thanks, Jack. Go home and sleep in a little, take today off.”

“Thanks,” said Jack, as his fingers flew over his Vortex manipulator. “Not gonna stop calling you Katie, though.”

Kate managed to get a last word of “I’ll have your head, Jackson!”as Jack was flashed away. 

He was met by Ianto’s arms, once Ianto had gotten over the fright, and he was happily led back to bed.

—

True to her word, the rover was put back to trundle off in the reddish dirt, and Kate managed to persuade everyone that the movement and orange lights were just solar flares. 

“Not an alien, not a prank, just luck and hope, really.”

She’d always found it a tiny bit funny how the Doctor called himself- no, herself, she corrected mentally, a Doctor of hope.

“Just lots of hope, sir.”

PS. Yes, I know someone died, but i’m omitting it because of spoilers, sweetie.

**Author's Note:**

> did you miss me? did you miss me? miss me? miss me?
> 
> but like actually though
> 
> what do you mean this didn't happen


End file.
